Crossed Circuits
by The King of Soda
Summary: Welman Matrix is running an experiment on the Gateway Command one second when a User is accidentally transported into Mainframe. The only problem? It's Vegeta...


Crossed Circuits

DISCLAIMER: I don't own DBZ or _ReBoot_.

CHAPTER 1: Arrival

Bob was in his garage back at the Eight Ball Apartments, his face obscured by the large red hood of his beloved car, digging deep into his engine's bowels in an effort to repair the classic 262 convertible which, as usual, was giving him a hard time.

_It's gotta be a problem with the port rerouter coil, I'm sure of it!_ he thought stubbornly. _Or maybe it's the axial interface plug? A distended turbo lock? Bad drivers? Ah, all the training in the Guardian Academy never taught me how to deal with this!_

Sighing, Bob decided maybe it was time to give it a rest for now and head back into the house. Maybe he could catch that new movie on IHS, _The Last Guardian_. Being a Guardian himself, Bob was intrigued about the idea of only one Guardian remaining on the Net to defend against an army of viruses.

Bob shivered. _On the other hand, maybe it's not such a great idea._

It had been five hours since Megabyte's defeat only two minutes after the start of his dreadful "Hunt." With some aide from the Codemasters and mysterious new revelations about the Keytools brought to light, the Mainframers were able to successfully prevent Megabyte from initiating a cascade reaction that would have deleted the system and everyone in it. Megabyte himself was taken back to the Supercomputer to further the research of the Viral Science teams, and for the most part, life in Mainframe had returned to its normal processes.

Well, _almost_ normal, anyway.

"BOB!" Enzo shouted through a vidwindow which had suddenly popped up, and Bob nearly ran into it.

"Is it Dot?" Bob asked, immediately concerned.

The young Sprite nodded. "Uh-huh. She's at the Principal Office. We need you!"

"I'm on my way, Enzo, just hang tight!"

Enzo nodded. "Just hurry!" The vidwindow disappeared. Bob ran outside to the patio and decompressed a zip-board, speeding off towards the Principal Office.

* * *

><p>Several milliseconds later, Bob could be found in the infirmary at the Principal Office, holding a bundle of wrappings as Dot slept peacefully under the energy covers. On his face was an expression of pure, unadulterated joy as he looked down into the sleeping face of a baby Sprite. It was apparent that she had inherited a lot from her father, namely her skin color, which was a light periwinkle shade of blue, but she also had her mother's black hair, chin, and nose. Bob practically radiated happiness as he held her, simply content to just stare at her and enjoy his time with her like was no next second.<p>

The door slid open and Phong entered.

"Ah, Bob, there you are. Still attending to young Pixel?"

Bob smiled. "Well, Dot's a bit out of it, so I figured, let her have some downtime while I get acquainted with my daughter."

As he said that last bit, he positively glowed with delight. It was hard to believe that after everything that had happened throughout their lives, something as wonderful and bright as a new life could be here. It was like a dream to Bob. His time in the Web might never have happened in his mind.

Phong nodded, respecting this bit of wisdom.

"Would you care to hold her, Phong?"

Phong shook his head, slightly disconcerted. "Oh... no, I wouldn't want to intrude."

"I insist," Bob said, smiling. "You're more than just this system's administrator, Phong, you're a member of the family to us."

"Well..." Phong was warmed by Bob's words, and was slowly being swayed. "Very well, but not for too long."

Phong wheeled over and Bob handed the sleeping form of Pixel Matrix to him. He stroked his long fingers across her face lightly, causing her to wiggle her nose. She giggled.

Bob laughed.

"I didn't know you were so good with kids, Phong."

Dot had apparently woken up, and was now watching the whole thing with an air of amusement.

Phong had the good grace to blush. "Oh, well, when you have inputted as many cycles as I have, my child, you will be sure to quicktime a thing or two."

Dot smiled. "True."

Bob got up and walked over to her, wrapping his arm around her shoulders. "Hey, how're you doing, Dot?"

Dot shrugged a little. "Not too bad, just a little tired. When can I expect to be back at work, Phong?"

Bob chuckled. "That's Dot for ya. Even with a new daughter to look after, she still wants to work. You're hopeless, Dot."

She punched him in the arm in mock anger.

"Where's Matrix and AndrAIa, Phong?" she asked Phong. Mouse and Ray had been out-of-system and were on their way back, but before she'd nodded off Dot remembered AndrAIa and Matrix were there.

"In the War Room, I believe, finishing up the latest system reports for this cycle," Phong replied.

"While we're on the subject, when is it gonna come time for Matrix and AndrAIa to start a family? It _has_ been five hours, after all," Bob said.

"I've told you before," came a rough voice from the doorway, "we're happy to keep things the way they are. We don't need to get married."

Matrix had entered the room. "They need you up in the War Room, Bob," he announced without preamble. "We have a small situation."

"What kind of situation?" Bob asked.

Matrix shrugged his massive shoulders. "I'll explain more when we get up there."

"All right, then," Bob said, moving over to the door.

"Wait up, guys, I'm coming too," Dot said.

Before they could protest, Phong glided over to Dot and handed her Pixel, resting his hand on her arm as he said gently, "What you need now is rest, my child. Give your format time to adjust, and then you can be back up and working around the cycle."

Dot sighed, knowing Phong was right. "All right, Phong."

Bob and Matrix left.

* * *

><p>"What's going on?" Bob asked as he entered the War Room behind Matrix.<p>

A CPU captain came up and saluted Bob, who gave him a curt nod and said, "At ease, Captain. What's happened?"

"Sir, as you know, Professor Matrix was running a few tests on the Gateway Command, but a few micros ago the energy readings of the Gate started spiking," the One Binome informed him. "We don't know what's causing it, and even the Professor himself is at a loss to explain the phenomenon. All we know is the amount of energy it's generating. If you'll just follow me over here, sir."

The CPU Captain walked to a console and typed in a command. A graph of the Gateway Command appeared on the main vidwindow, followed with a chart of various readings taken from the sensors.

Bob absorbed the data swiftly. "That's impossible," he whispered. "Not even the Core can create that much power."

"There's something else, sir," said a Zero Binome who was working at a computer terminal. "We've detected some type of high intermittent virtual resonance pulse. It's wreaking havoc on our sensors, but from what we are able to ascertain from the signal, it seems to be originating from somewhere outside of Cyberspace."

"What?" Bob exclaimed.

"There's no way!" Matrix said.

But all further conversations were cut off when the War Room suddenly shook. The System Voice rang out, clear and cool. "WARNING, INCOMING DATA TRANSFER. WARNING, INCOMING DATA TRANSFER."

"Oh, no!" said one of the scientist Binomes. "Sir, there's an energy distortion forming around the city, it's surrounding us!"

On the vidwindows showing the city, lines of energy shot across the sky like zaps of light.

"Can you determine the point of convergence for the distortion?" Bob said.

A Zero Binome on the other side of the War Room called, "Here, sir! It's hard to tell exactly, but it looks like the distortion intersects at one location: The Gateway Command."

"Dad!" Matrix said worriedly.

"Captain, patch me through to Welman!" Bob ordered.

The Captain pressed a few buttons on the control console, and the vidwindow's screen filled with Welman's anxious face. Bob noted vaguely that they were all a good distance from the Gateway Command, and thanked the User Welman had at least had the foresight to take that standard security precaution.

Before Bob could say anything, Welman launched into a report. "All systems are showing normal. According to our data, there should be no reason for the buildup of virtual particles inside the Gate! No residual flux charge, no increase or drop in the energy/ion containment field, no static in the harmonic wavelengths, no nothing! It should be working fine. All we did was upgrade the ping function!"

"Welman, get everybody out of there!" Bob commanded. "We'll evacuate all nonessential personnel from the Principal Office and leave behind a utility team to figure out why the Gate is..."

But a bright light from the Gate behind Welman interrupted Bob and with a startled cry of surprise from Welman and the research team the vidwindow went dead. A large crackle of thunder assaulted Bob's eardrums and the floor underneath pitched, sending Bob and the rest of the War Room workforce flying to their knees.

"Dad! No! This can't be happening!" Matrix yelled.

"Calm down, Matrix," Bob said. "Glitch, get me a line. Put Welman through."

_If you can,_ he added silently.

To Bob's surprise and quiet relief, a picture of Welman appeared on the Keytool's hard surface.

"Welman, are you okay?" Bob asked.

Welman's nullsuit seemed unharmed, though the Professor himself sounded a little shaken up. "Uh, uh, yes, I'm fine," he said. "Um, though I cannot understand why..."

"Professor!" someone called from off-screen. "You'd better come take a look at this!"

Welman turned to face the speaker, and Bob took the time to survey the War Room. The computer interfaces and vidwindows had all gone dead, but it looked like everyone was fully functional.

"Everybody all right?" he said.

There were murmurs of agreement, so Bob glanced back down at Glitch. "Professor, wha..."

"Bob!" the Professor's voice sounded urgent. "I think you better get down here! There's something you should see."

Bob exchanged a glance with Matrix.

"I'm heading down there! Clear the halls so no one gets in my way," Matrix ordered gruffly, exiting the room.

Bob followed him.

* * *

><p>As soon as they arrived in the Core Room, they knew something was wrong. A group of Binomes had clustered a few dozen feet away from the Gate, which was now shut down. Bob was relieved to see no one had been deleted or sustained any fatal injuries, but on closer look, he saw that every person in the chamber had on their features an expression of shock and awe, as though they were staring at a corrupted file.<p>

Bob and Matrix ran over.

"Dad, are you all right?" Matrix demanded. It was not in his function to act sentimental, except maybe to AndrAIa, who understood him best. And speaking of AndrAIa, she was there as well, and she had the same not-quite-believing expression on her face as the others.

"I'm fine, son," Welman reassured him.

"What is it, Professor?" Bob asked, stepping up to him. "Why did you call us he..."

But he trailed off as his eyes caught something lying amid the gaggle of onlookers.

It appeared to be a Sprite, maybe v.3.0 or older, and he wore a very strange clothing format. He had on blue a spandex jumpsuit with white gloves and boots, and he had peach-colored skin with pointy black hair that poked up around his head like a surrounding halo, as well as hard features and an elongated face that gave it the look of a heart.

For a moment no one spoke.

Then, Bob at last broke the silence.

"Um, what is that?"

* * *

><p>Yeah, decided to upload this again. Apologies for taking it down.<p> 


End file.
